Our four month in Asia seemed to fly by, and left me with a lot of wonderful experiences and memories from our various ministries. I also was left with a lot of funny cultural memories from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia:
You know you’re in Asia when…
-seeing pointy hats on locals is as normal as seeing a baseball caps on a baseball team.
-you duct tape the timer on the fan so it will blow semi-cool air around during the 7 hours you attempt to sleep.
-every person you ask for directions responds with the “so-so” handshake and says “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
-a white person walks down the street and you automatically assume they are not American. (They're usually German, Australian, English, Spanish, Canadian, French…pretty much anything but American)
-you make it a personal goal for the month to try every fruit combination possible from the smoothie lady on the corner.
-you are willing to bike all they way across town and purchase expensive coffee just to be in a place with wifi and air-conditioning.
-the clothing shopkeepers tell you, “Oh, big size we no have,” and point you to the plus-size shop down the street.
-you compare the sea of motorcycles at an intersection to a crowd of ants on a cookie crumb.
-Korean music videos play in all restaurant visits and public bus rides.
-you are so excited about your pomegranate popsicle, that you take a huge first bite…only to find out it is “red bean” flavored. (Thanks for that one, Becca!)
-the bell on your bicycle isn’t just a toy. It’s a life-saving device that is strategically used to warn buses, cars and tuk-tuks of your presence on the highway.
-you search up and down every aisle in the grocery store for rice. Eventually you ask the manager and he takes you to a separate section of the store where you can only buy rice in 5 or 10lb bags.
-you think $10 for a 1 hour full-body massage is expensive.
-you visit the customer service desk of the mall multiple times because you somehow got lost getting to the Starbucks on the 10th floor. You accidently went to the ones on the 1st and 8th floors first.
-The Hunger Games is banned from opening in theatres because of fear it will cause an uprising against the country’s government.
-you feel like you’re actually in The Hunger Games because the city you live in is labeled in numbered districts. (We were in districts 1 and 3)
-wearing a cute floral shirt and a cotton skirt is the dressiest outfit you have, and it’s still not dressy enough to make a public appearance.
– you are taking photos of those in a local festival, only to find out they are taking photos of you, the rare foreigner.
-Pizza Hut is a luxury for not only its tasty stuff-crust pizza, but also for the air-conditioning, iced cokes and wifi that illegally allows you to check your Facebook.
-during a small conversation with your teammate, you are hushed by the ticket lady on the public bus for being too loud.
-during a walk through the market you step over a live fish in the floor that is flopping its way to freedom.
-the eyeballs of your food stare at you while you eat.
-as you sweat in the 90 degree heat, the locals comfortably flaunt around in their long-sleeves, pants and fuzzy gloves and socks.
-you’re invited for an interview with the local television show and later have your picture on the front page of the newspaper.
-you begin to crave Indian food when you haven’t had it for 2 days.
-you get your iced coffee from a place called Plearn-Plearn.
-You discover the 3 flavors of Lay’s Potato Chips at the grocery store: seaweed, fish and lobster.
-You accidently pour soy sauce on your French toast because it was placed next to the honey on the breakfast buffet.
-you fall in love with the people and seriously consider adopting mulitple Asian children in the future….
